Beyond Recognition
by FleaBee
Summary: My plan was to work in a good job for a few years, get married and settle down on a nice moon and raise a family. That didn't happen, my world has been shaken up so often that I now find it hard to recognize where I come and where I will be going next. Oneshot


**_Beyond Recognition_**

 _Written for The Rooms 2017 Memoir Madness_

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Do you know how many times my world has been shaken up and everything I knew was changed beyond recognition? How many times I had to adapt to extreme change? It's more than I would like, more than most people go through in a lifetime.

The first time my world drastically changed was when I was eighteen and left Cyberschool. A virtual reality boarding school program I started when I was seven. It was the best education money could buy. I only spent the holidays with my parents and brother on lavish holidays before going back to my perfect little world with my perfect computer generated friends and my perfect computer generated teacher. The whole world was catered around me and my needs. Holidays were spent with my parents spoiling the pair of us since they only ever saw us plugged into VR for the rest of the year and we didn't see them at all.

My whole world was turned upside down when I left Cyberschool and had to go out into the real world truly for the first time. Holidays didn't count, they were to the most beautiful, safe places in existence. Reality was not beautiful or safe all the time. I came out believing the world revolved around me, after all Cyberschool did. It was a culture shock that the world did not revolve around me and my whims. I no longer had the perfect computer generated friends, I didn't have any friends at all. I didn't have perfect weather, the weather changed on a whim and even in a controlled environment it. The weather would get too hot or cold and things would break down in the controlled environments.

After learning that the world wasn't perfect, I went through a rebellious streak. I changed my style and joined a punk rock band. I learnt that sex was not just between married couples and got involved with a few men who were all too happy to take advantage of the naive girl I was. Before I knew it I was pregnant to someone I didn't know. Just as I was getting my head around being pregnant, before I decided if I was going to be a mother or not, I lost the baby. I was so relieved at the time. I wasn't ready to be a mother especially when I didn't even know who I was. Then I would feel guilty for feeling relieved.

After the close brush with becoming a mother before I was ready, I decided to straighten out my life, stop living in a fantasy world and learn how to live in the real world. So many of the children who'd gone to Cyberschool couldn't cope in the real world. They went back to school or found some other virtual reality environment to live in or turned to drugs and other addictive substances. I was not going to become a game head or a bliss freak. I was going to be a functioning member of this imperfect society.

With my grades and family connections, I was able to get into a good university. No one looked twice at my two years as a punk rock chick rebel. I think my father paid them not to look. I pulled myself together, hitting the books hard and graduated the top of my class and got a job as a console officer on the Red Dwarf.

My plan had been to work on the Red Dwarf for a few years and have an adventure in space, visiting the different ports while I decided what planet I wanted to live on and how I advanced my career. My plan was after I had the career on the planet I wanted I would eventually getting married and have my own children that I would raise to the best of my ability, not putting them through Cyberschool like my parents did with me. That was never to happen, I didn't have a good experience with leaving Cyberschool, my children were going to know the real world.

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Red Dwarf was where my world was shaken up for the second time in my life. One of my ex-boyfriends, Dave Lister smuggled a kitten onto the ship. We were together for three amazing weeks during a break from my long-term boyfriend Tim one of the Catering Officers. During mine and Tim's break, it was like I regressed back to my rebellious stage. Dave was exactly the kind of guy I sought out during my rebellious stage. He was loud, always drinking and smoking in his spare time, slobby and laid back and experienced with woman and it showed- the sex was amazing. We spent three weeks going between his bunk and mine. At the end of the three weeks, I went back to Tim. I didn't think Dave would care, however, I'd left him heartbroken. Dave's reason for smuggling the kitten on board, trying to get himself thrown into stasis so he could go back to Earth so he could move on and forget me. It didn't work, I was the one who found his kitten and I didn't have the heart to destroy him myself. I took him back to my room and a few days later was discovered with the kitten and thrown into stasis.

If I hadn't been thrown into stasis then and there, my life would've been over a few days later. A radiation leak wiped out the entire crew. Everyone else was dead. Tim was dead, Dave who ended up saving my life was dead, my roommate also gone, all my friend no more. I was alone on a big mining ship what was supposed to be manned by a crew of one hundred and fifty minimum. Three million years into the future and away from the solar system.

One thousand one hundred and sixty-eight dead, just like that in a blink of an eye.

Knowing that I couldn't survive on my own, Holly, the ship's computer turned on someone who was supposed to motivate and challenge me, she turned on my ex-boyfriend Dave Lister. The reason I had survived in the first place.

I was feeling so drained and sluggish in those early weeks out of stasis. I assumed it was a result the change of situation and the stress. I was wrong it turned out I was pregnant. I was terrified, here I was trapped on my own with the only help being a computer who was going senile and my dead ex hologram boyfriend, neither who could touch anything. From how many weeks along I was I didn't know if the baby was Tims or Dave's. Dave didn't care, he told me Tim was out of the picture and that he was going to be the best father he could be, that genetics didn't make a father. I learnt that Dave was abandoned at six weeks of age in a pub. We never thought we'd now the truth about his paternity and why he was abandoned. It is a doozy, let me tell you that.

Like the first time I was pregnant, I lost the baby and once again I felt relieved and guilty for feeling that way. I was not in a situation for a baby. I wasn't prepared for deep space. I certainly wasn't prepared to deliver and raise a baby in deep space on my own. As sweet as Dave was for offering to be the father, he's was immature and physically incapable of helping me. Being a softlight hologram, all he could do was keep me company. He tried to help me move on from losing the baby.

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Not long after I lost the baby we discovered we weren't alone on the ship. Dave wasn't the only person to smuggle a cat on board. Over three million years the kittens had evolved into a man who looked human but was still a Cat at heart. I was preoccupied while I examined how his biology differed from a human and if we could use our medical supplies and got my focus away from what I'd lost. Not just my baby but everyone I knew and loved. We became fast friends, both interested in fashion. We'd trade fashion tips, have manicures and do each other's hair. By the time we found Kryten on the Nova 5, Dave had started to join us in our fashion afternoons.

With Kryten around, I felt confident that I could be a mother now. I went down to the medilab and raided the sperm bank. Month after month I was left disappoint. I started calculating my ovulation, changed my diet all to improve my chances of pregnancy. I went through the sperm donors, using those who were in optimal health. On the rare occasion I did fall pregnant, I only made it past fifteen weeks one time. I lost count of the number of times I miscarried. Dave and Kryten begged me to stop. But I didn't want the human race to end with me and I wanted to be a mother. I dreamed of being a mother and I didn't want being stuck in deep space to stop me.

The day we ran out of sperm, I turned my attention to Cat. The biology between the feline sapiens and homo sapiens is different despite looking the same as a glance, very slight differences that gave me hope it could work, that we could combine DNA and create a new species. Sex with Cat was very painful, he's got barbs that humans do not and would take days to recover. Cat gave me hope could even tell when the optimal time was for me to get pregnant and would seek me out during those times and no other. I kept telling myself, it would be worth it, putting up with the pain. I managed to get pregnant twice and like all the times previously I failed to stay pregnant. The foetus was very deformed. Dave was the one who convinced me I needed to stop trying to get pregnant. I was driving myself insane and everyone else around me.

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To distract me from the fact I wasn't going to be a mother, Dave helped keep me busy. Joining Cat and I and as we went back to doing each other's hair and relaxing. Dave and I enjoyed getting to know one another properly without sex as a distraction. I found that I truly did love him and he was more sensitive and caring then he put on. When he finally got a hard light drive, he was no longer a stupid kid, he was a loving, sensitive man who was my ideal partner.

I didn't say distracted for long from my quest to be a mother. We found an artificial uterus on one of the space stations. My obsession with being a mother came back stronger than ever. I harvested some of my eggs, harvested Cats sperm, which he was not happy about, let me tell you. Combined the two, pop them into the uterus. We kept ended up with deformed babies that didn't survive. Dave had to one again tell me to stop because I wasn't just hurting myself, I was hurting Cat. They were his children to. I was only thinking about myself and kept forgetting that it wasn't just me and my children. I was hurting Dave, and even Kryten. Most importantly, I was hurting Cat.

I stopped, but I didn't give up hope. I kept the remainder of my harvested eggs with me just in case I ever came across someone with sperm they could donate. I never thought it would happen, thought it was a faint hope. Iit did happen, I met someone with sperm they could donate, my life was turned upside down again.

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We found a dimensional rift tear. It was something new and exciting after months of nothing, so we went through the dimension. It is something I wish we never did. That we ignored the blue swirly rift and kept living our life the same as before. Through the rift we met an alternate version of Dave, Kryten and Cat. A living Dave who survived because in that dimension I never found him with the kitten, or pregnant cat as it turned out in this dimension. I died in his dimension.

I ended up getting stuck in that dimension and I never saw my Dave and my Kryten and my Cat again. I got stuck with a version of my now boyfriend who was still a child, like he'd been all those years ago. In fact he was worse now than before the accident. He'd completely regressed.

Kryten the droid who doted on my every need and made sure I was well looked after hated me, he thought I was going to take his Mister Lister away from him and doted on Dave's every need. I was not interested in a childish alternate of my boyfriend.

And then there was the Cat. He had the same interests still and very much like his counterpart from my universe. This Cat kept trying to sleep with me. While I had slept with Cat in my dimension, I was not about to let this Cat know. He didn't want to share his beauty products with me and I missed the time we spent together.

It was like they were all cheap imitations of my friends and once again I had lost what had become my perfect world.

I was assuming that I would be Dave's hologram, he was after all mine. When I didn't see a hologram around I assumed Holly who was male in this dimension never turned a hologram on. I soon learnt that this dimensions hologram was Rimmer, Arnold Rimmer the biggest neurotic little weasely man I've ever met in my entire life. I wondered why Holly turned him on instead of me. My Holly, she turned Dave on for me because he was my ideal life and romantic partner. I didn't understand why Holly of this dimension would choose Rimmer as the ideal life and romantic partner for Dave. What had Holly seen that I hadn't?

Rimmer was as homophobic as they came. He fussed over the smallest details, reporting the silliest things to the different departments. I could not see him getting turned on for anyone, let alone Dave. I assumed at first Rimmer had been turned off or that he was on the Red Dwarf with Holly. I was originally told he'd died, his hologram no longer able to function. Later I learnt that he didn't die, he'd left to become a space adventuring dimensional hero. Rimmer a hero? He was the biggest coward I have ever met. I doubted he had a heroic bone in his body.

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My adventures with them did end up being a world of fun. Surviving on Starbug because the boys had lost the Red Dwarf, sleeping in Rimmer's old bedroom which was the smallest one on the ship. Dave offered to swap with my, but his room was filled with garbage and who knew how long some of those curry stains had been around. Rimmer's former bedroom was the cleanest one on the ship and to regulation which made me feel a world of a lot better, besides the pipe that kept squeaking in my ear.

My first day stuck in the dimension Dave gave me this stupid story about how I was his mother and he was his own father all because of the word Ouroboros that was written on the side of a battery box from my own dimension. I thought he was being ridiculous. I knew that Dave was abandoned and never knew who his parents were. Me being his mother, when I couldn't even get any of my pregnancies to last even in an artificial uterus?

We eventually found an artificial uterus and I combined mine and this Dave's DNA. A Dave who was not my Dave, wishing the baby was my partners and not this cheap copy. Watching day in day out expecting a loss again, like all my other losses in my own dimension. Seeing the baby grow stronger instead of weaker like I was used to. I didn't tell Dave my concerns. I didn't tell him I was worried the baby would die. Dave himself was weepy every time he looked at the baby and he sat there talking to it all the time, he honestly believed that the baby was a younger version of himself.

The day came when we were able to get the baby out, the baby's birth. I was not as excited as I felt I should be. I felt nothing at all and then felt guilty for feeling nothing and not feeling excited. Dave held the baby first before passing him over to me. Instead of feeling joy at finally becoming a mother, I felt hatred. Not for the baby itself but for myself. That I couldn't carry the baby myself because I kept miscarrying and slight hatred that this wasn't my Dave's baby that this was a different Dave's baby and that I didn't get to experience this with my partner, I had to share it with a cheap copy. Followed by more guilt for feeling these feelings.

For six weeks I lived in denial that the baby was Dave's past. I could not be the mother of my boyfriend, it was just illogical. It should not be able to work like that. Dave shouldn't be able to be his own father, the genetics would be a mess. If you kept going through a loop I was his only other relative and we were of different background cultures. I was European descent and he had African ancestors in his heritage somewhere. If he came from only me and my family line, how did he look like he did now? It didn't make sense and it was driving me insane trying to work out the science and the logic of it.

When baby Dave was getting close to six weeks old, the timeline started to collapse in on itself. Baby Dave was crying in pain all the time and Dave was also starting to experience pain. In the end it was killing our baby to keep them in this timeline. I watched as Dave got him ready to take him to the past with a method of time travel that they apparent acquired and promised never to use again.

I decided the best way to move forward was to pretend the baby was dead instead of abandoning him to preserve the time stream. Dave, on the other hand, could not do that. He kept talking about the baby. "This week my mum, dad and gran should be meeting me and taking me home from the orphanage." And other comments wondering if certain things has happened yet. I was getting sick of hearing about a son we'd never get to raise. Then he said something unexpected. "I wonder what Jim and Bexley are doing at the moment."

That line threw me. Jim and Bexley were what my Dave and I planned to name our children if we were lucky enough to have two boys. They were to be named after our shared favourite Zero G football idol and I've always liked the name James, it's what I planned to name my one of my children even when I was a girl in cyber school and Bexley just sounded so rebellious and what I was considered the name for my first baby I'd lost. James was the name I gave the second baby. I had names for additional children I'd lost over the years, named after my brother and other family member friends who were important to me and from my favourite books. Cat named one the ones we'd lost together Marilyn. I panicked thinking that Dave knew about my miscarriages somehow. I had never mentioned them to him, at that point, I never even had anything written down on paper in that dimension.

"I'm glad they are gone." Cat had exclaimed to the comment about the children. Dave looked so hopeless, lost and disappeared at that comment. It was when I saw his facial expression, I knew that I was wrong about who they were. They knew nothing about my failed pregnancy's. Dave opened up and told me the full story about how his two children, twin boys that had to live in another dimension to save their lives. I just felt awful, this was the second time Dave had to leave his children, once in another dimension and once in another time. I grew insanely jealous when I discovered that he'd been the one that was pregnant with the twins and that he had a smooth pregnancy and delivered them via caesarean without any complications during the pregnancy.

The complications with the twins started after they were born. They grew from zero to eighteen in three days. I learnt so much about Dave and Rimmer from that story. Rimmer who I always assumed didn't have a nice and helpful bone in his body had helped Dave his whole pregnancy.

"He only went back to being a smeghead when I couldn't get out of my depression of having to give them up. I wish he was here now, he'd know how to make me feel better." Dave explained to me and I realised that there was more to Arnold Rimmer then I assumed. There was more to this version of Dave Lister then I knew. I wasn't the only one that suffered the loss of a child. He'd lost his children in a different way to myself and had regressed as a coping mechanism. That was when I started getting closer to this Dave and getting to know him as a person, a different person then my Dave.

After the baby was sent back to the past that Dave fell into a depression and started to miss Rimmer even more. He'd tell me how Rimmer made him feel better after sending the twins away. How close they had grown over the years and that he regret talking him into becoming Ace. He even started having sex dreams about the man he hadn't even considered a friend while he'd been around. It hurt that he really did think of Rimmer the way I thought of my Dave. He loved Rimmer and didn't even know it. I tried to help him, telling him that my Dave and I weren't really together and that my Dave had loved Rimmer. Dave saw through my lie, he thought I was lying to help him past his claustrophobia.

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Just as I was getting used to living on Starbug, we stumbled across the Red Dwarf. We'd been searching for Kryten's nanobots to rebuild Dave's arm after he lost it in an accident. We found the nanobots and we also found what had happened to this dimensions Red Dwarf. The nanobots had broken it down and stolen the ship. We convinced them to rebuild the ship for us, which had all of our worlds turned upside down again.

We were no longer alone! After years of being in such a small group it was surreal to be around other people again. People that I once knew over three million years ago. I never thought I would see them again and here they were. The nanobot had somehow been able to bring them back from the dead. I first suspected that something was wrong with the situation when the nanobots did not resurrect a version of me. I died on the ship and have since confirmed that this dimension's version of me died on the ship, that she should've been on the ship like everyone else.

Of course, the Captain and the officers didn't believe us when we explained why we had Starbug. As far as they were concerned it was a couple of days before the accident and they were somehow in an uncharted section of space with no idea how to get back to Earth. They kept this secret from the rest of the crew. We were accused of stealing Starbug and confidential files and ended up getting sentenced to the Brig for two years. We all assumed the small brig that was kept near the stasis booths that were used for quarantine sometimes. We were wrong, very very wrong. It was not that Brig. Red Dwarf had a prison deck that none of us knew existed. I have since confirmed in the records that the Brig known as the Tank by the prisoners really did exist. It wasn't something that the nanobots just created. I wonder if it exists in my own Red Dwarf, if I ever get home it's top of my list to find out.

We ended up locked in the Tank with the prisoners that were the worst of the worst, they were serial killers, cannibals, murderers, rapists etc. If a crime had been committed that was horrible, someone in the Tank had done the crime. Dave dragged the living Rimmer into our mess. Missing the hologram Rimmer he kept treating the living Rimmer the way he treated the hologram and then would wonder why he didn't react the same way.

Our first day in the Tank, Dave did something horrible to Rimmer, something that Dave is his naivety didn't realise that his ' _prank_ ' was dangerous and caused harm. He poured a virus called sexual magnetism virus all over Rimmer. Not just a small amount but a large does and walked off laughing thinking he'd just pulled a prank.

I came across the sexual magnetism virus in my own dimension and the other positive virus on the ship. The research was very controversial and it the end result ended up in the people of the opposite gender unable to resist sex with the person who was infected. The infected person would be highly sexually aroused and find themselves having issues resisting the advances of the people around.

Rimmer didn't affect the people around him like he was supposed to, he was only supposed to affect people of the same gender. Instead, he affected both genders. That had me suspecting he was intersex. I wanted to ask if he was intersex. If he knew he was intersex. I wanted to ask him about the experience while he was under the effects of the virus, but I was too frightened to bring it up with Rimmer. I didn't want to push him away. After all I didn't know him that well. I didn't know him in my other dimension and who would want to talk about rape especially with someone who was essentially a stranger.

After he was raped while under the effects of the sexual magnetism virus he shut everyone out for three days. Talking to no one, fuming with anger. Then he started acting like nothing ever happened and was able to forgive Lister for what he did. Rimmer acted like he deserved what happened. He would flinch occasionally when he was touched and avoided physical contact with everyone. When we were in a situation where it was just the two of us alone during our first mission with the other prisoners, he didn't shy away from sexual contact, in fact, he instigated it. I have read a study that some people who have been raped crave more sexual contact instead of shying away from it all together, craving for more positive experience to erase the highly negative experience in some cases and that is what is seemed Rimmer was after. He seemed happy when Cassandra the computer from the wreckage we were visiting said that we were going to sleep with one another and that Rimmer was going to die after getting shot in the head with a harpoon gun. He seemed to be looking forward to the experience. Who looks forward to death? He normally runs at any danger that would kill him.

Talking to Dave he would always tell me that Rimmer was different to his Rimmer and how he was different. It made me realise for the first time that I did that to Dave when I was talking about my Dave. Going on how Dave just did not live up to my Dave. Despite being from the same universe and the same past before the accident; this Rimmer and hologram Rimmer were not the same Rimmer. The diverted with how they were brought back from the dead.

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When the ship started to break down, we ended up hiding in a mirror universe to get away from it. Rimmer had gone in alone to get the name of the vaccine. We all assumed that he failed and stayed in that universe. Instead, we found out that he had come back for us and that somehow we managed to miss each other. Rimmer died, the Rimmer that I had managed to make sort of friend with. We returned to Dave's home universe, stepping through the mirror to find Ace Rimmer instead of our Rimmer.

The ship had been restored back to what it was before the crew died. I now don't believe that the ship was infected by a virus. I think that the nanobots could no longer maintain all the changes that they had made and as a result, the ship started to break down. All the crew that they brought back from the dead started to break down. We ran, not letting the breaking down crew and ships back aboard, not wanting to see our friends die in front of us. We'd already seen how the process happened. Rimmer broke down, he died in front of us, turning into dust. It was horrible and we didn't know what happened at first.

Ace Rimmer we soon discovered was Rimmer the hologram, the one that Dave missed and loved. He had come back to this dimension on a mission to rescue the crew. He'd accidently saved us by getting the ship to rebuild itself to the original build. He then fixed the mirror teleporter so we could go home. However in the process Wildfire was damaged beyond repair. He was stuck with us and would not be going back to being Ace.

I thought that this Rimmer would be different from the nanobot Rimmer since he had never been raped in the brig and from the stories that Dave told. I was wrong, I was very very wrong. He still flinched away from touch and wouldn't let anyone get to close. He even shied away from sexual contact more than the other Rimmer. I raised this issue with Dave and he said that it was normal, that Rimmer was just Rimmer. I now wondered had Rimmer been raped before in his past and that was why nano Rimmer was able to shrug it off as if nothing ever happened? Thinking that he deserved what happened because it had happened before?

I felt guilty for never getting to know the Rimmer in my own dimension and learning about what made him-him and why he acted the way he did. I thought that he was just a slimy little-twisted man. Instead, I learnt that he'd been hurt so much in the past by his own family that he would push everyone away when they got too close. I would see him getting close to Dave or myself and Kryten for a few weeks and then would do something subconsciously to make us angry at him. Cat seemed to be the only one that he never got close to, Cat wouldn't let him. I think cat knew.

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With the crew missing, it felt like I was back into known territory. I had Red Dwarf back to myself again, with twisted versions of my own crew and family along with Rimmer. With Rimmer around it actually made everything feel complete and whole. I now wish that we could have Rimmer in my home dimension if I ever managed to get back. He completed something with Dave and gave me someone I could work with on an intellectual level and enjoyed watching operas and old historical romance movies with me. That came as a surprise to me, Rimmer is intelligent, just not in the areas he wants to be. He'd complain about the opera's and historical romances, make out that he didn't like them, but knew far too much about them for someone that didn't like that type of thing. He was a romantic at heart, even if he pretended he wasn't.

Before long our misfit crew was back to what it was before we found Red Dwarf. Living the same existence we had on Starbug. I went back to trying to get myself pregnant and have a child. I was jealous of Dave and wanted to have that experience for myself. I raided the sperm bank in secret going through all the crew, avoiding Dave's sperm. He was my son and an alternate of my boyfriend. It just would not do that again. What happens if we ended up with a Dave that had to go to a different dimension and time? Or worse, we ended up with me! I had several miscarriages just like the first time around and had more trouble falling pregnant than in my original dimension.

Much like the first time, in my own dimension, eventually, I ran out of sperm to use. All I had left was Dave's which I wasn't going to use no matter what. And Rimmer who I saved for last. In my dimension, I am sure I didn't have sperm from him. I had no luck, I went through every single vial and I didn't get pregnant longer than a few weeks. I had missed out on my chance of being a mother. Dave does not count as a son, he is the same age as me and an alternate of my now ex.

I fell into a state of depression that I didn't want to let anyone know about. Dave did not notice, he was too busy trying to get into my bed. Kryten if he noticed did not care, the bond that we made while in the Tank was gone and he went back to hating me and trying to keep me away from Dave.

Cat noticed and kept trying to avoid me.

Rimmer also noticed and went between trying to help and being nice to me and trying to avoid me because he thought that he was making things worse. It was sweet to see this side of Rimmer, exactly as Dave described Rimmer being like after sending the twins away. I really didn't know or believe he had it in him until I saw if for myself. Rimmer has no empathy for people that he doesn't know. If you happen to be one of the people lucky enough to get on his radar he will do anything to protect you, even if you didn't notice. So far Lister and Kryten are the only ones on that radar full time.

It surprised me to see how much time Rimmer actually spent with Kryten and that Kryten actually seems to enjoy Rimmer's company. When we searched derelicts Rimmer would go with Kryten more often than anyone else. He'd also go with myself and Dave depend on the situation we found ourselves in depending on who he felt could protect him the best or on the rare occasion who needed his help the most. When I was feeling really depressed Rimmer actually went with me on a regular basis to try and snap me out of it. The only person that Rimmer never went with was Cat.

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Eventually, I found myself going through menopause and early menopause at that. No more children for me. I was out of sperm if you didn't count the vials that belonged to Dave and now my eggs had dried up as well. I was feeling suffocated and like my life had no meaning anymore. It was up to me to repopulate the galaxy and I could not even do a simple thing like that.

When I was at my worst, during the middle of the night after a fight with Dave, Rimmer and Kryten about something stupid - I ran. I took Blue Midget and flew off blindly. I just could not stand to be around myself anymore so why should anyone else be around me in that state. By the time I had let off enough steam, I had lost sight of the Red Dwarf. I didn't know where it was. No trace of it anywhere. I was on my own in a ship without any food stocks. I was lost.

I did my best scavenging derelicts on my search for the Red Dwarf or even my home dimension. It been five months since I managed to get myself lost. Recently I noticed I'd put on weight even though I should be starving to death and losing weight. I had lost weight off my face and everywhere else except my midsection. A trip to the very simplistic medibay confirmed what I never suspect to confirm.

I am seven months pregnant and somehow I had missed all the signs.

My stopped period was not from menopause, it was from pregnancy. My mood swings and depression was not a result of failing to become a mother and the hormone misbalance of menopause, it was a hormone imbalance of creating a new life. The child was Rimmers of all peoples, his sperm was the one to take hold and get me to the point of pregnancy I'd never been at before.

I never told him, I don't think he would appreciate that I stole his DNA from the lab and used it without permission. He is very possessive of anything that belongs to him, even old dandruff. If he find any of his DNA he keeps it. He even has his remains and nano-Rimmer's remains kept somewhere secret.

I will be going into stasis. I have very high suspicions that something is wrong with the baby. I cannot do this on my own. The next time I come out of stasis, if I come out of stasis, I know that my world will be turned on its head again. The first time I was in stasis I was in for three million years. Who is to say that I will not be in stasis for another three million years or something else doesn't get me first like simulants, BEGGs or just running into a sun.

My hope is that Dave and Arnold find me before it's too late. I want to see them again and I want to see my Dave. I wish that all of us from my two dimensions could live together. If by chance you are reading this and I am gone, I am sorry. I love you guys. I love you Dave, I love even love you Rimmer or should I say Arnold, I love you Cat, I love you Holly and Kryten despite our differences I love you too.

If I could see Dave and Arnold again, I would tell them sorry. Arnold, I am sorry, you are going to be a father and that is something you never asked for. WSomething I don't know it you want or not. David, this child will be your little brother or sister biologically and Arnold child. If something ever happens to me, I want you two to raise the baby together.

If someone manages to find me, if I die in childbirth after that point, I hope that whoever finds me is able to take my child to the only other family I have.

I am a survivor, I know that whatever situation I find myself in, I will be able to survive and adapt if I survive childbirth. I have done it several times already, I can do it again.

When my parents raised me and gave me the best education that money could buy, I know this is not what they had in mind. I wonder what they would think if they could see me now. I hope they are proud of what I have achieved. I have had the adventure of a lifetime, a lifetime that I know certain people crave to have for themselves.


End file.
